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Creative Writing: Some Thoughts

Generally, the word ‘creative writing’ itself indicates that you need to be creative, applying your brain in writing. Though this may seem difficult, your thought is all required for it. This post belongs to the other category, more suited to non-fiction, known as abstract. It means you are listening to what you are reading and not seeing anything. On the other hand, the visual, concrete form of writing, more suited to the fiction, creates visuals in your brain and is, hence, more interesting to read.

In visual creative writing, the ideas are more definite. The actions are more felt, through five senses. As I said in an earlier post, you see, hear, taste, touch, and smell what you read.

Today we have so many media around us. TV, Radio, Internet, and many others. Through all these media, we are seeing and hearing various things. Films actually show us what people from a totally different country or field do. These visuals can well inspire our own imagination and help us be more visual in our art. But at the time of Charles Dickens or William Shakespeare, they didn’t have any such media. They still showed to their readers, almost as a movie does now, or better.

Movie actually shows you visuals what the cinematographer saw through his camera, and nothing more than that. You cannot apply your imagination in a movie. On the other hand, in a written work, the writer allows you to apply your imagination. So, when a writer tells, “a weak lean hunchback, trotting along the dirty street,” each of you has a slightly different version of the visual than the original one the writer conceived. So, it actually springs forth a multitude of different scenes according to the imagination of the reader.

So, written works involve more of imagination than any other forms of art like movies or TV shows. There they have limit to what they can achieve. In written works, there is absolutely no limit to anything.

A lot of thought process has to go into the works you write, and unless you think hard on it, you cannot pull it off well.

History Today

Though this is not an event of the literary world, I must not refrain from mentioning the birth of Florence Nightingale, the English nurse in 1820. “The Lady with the Lamp” was one of the greatest health workers in the world. She also contributed to literary world in a minor way, obscured by her social welfare works.

Copyright © Lenin Nair 2008

Comments

  1. When a painting is a work of art you do not see the model, you see the painter.
    The same applies to a good writer.
    In every book, in every book written with the heart ( and every post if you like) you feel the writer.
    I used to read a lot when I was a little girl.
    I was a lonely person, I didn't have many friends, I didn't like to talk.
    I loved to read, and I felt every writer as a friend, somebody I was very close to, because I was able and was allowed to live his life.
    The writer and the reader share a book, a story, a life.
    And what you write is a little part of your life that goes on when you are dead.
    As our DNA makes us immortal because we go on living in the body of our children, so what we write will go on living in the people who will read us.
    People die, but minds live forever.
    Thanks for stopping by in my blog.
    I think we share a lot
    Patrizia

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Patrizia, for the comment. Your thoughts are very deep.

    ReplyDelete
  3. so i am a fiction writer and a blogger and find your site very useful. So thank you. Happy to show link love.

    ReplyDelete

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